Only God Forgives

Started by HeywoodRFloyd, January 06, 2013, 12:06:54 AM

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wilder


Kellen


wilder

Ugh. What a disappointment. Stick with the trailers, guys.


wilder

Quote from: Kellen on July 19, 2013, 06:58:38 PM
The Auteur of Ultraviolence

Making the press rounds, Refn has repeatedly pointed to two developments. [...] The other was the discovery of Refn's younger daughter's connection to the spirit world. After moving to Bangkok for preproduction, Refn and his wife would be woken up five or six times a night by their daughter, whom they found pointing to a corner in her room and screaming "No!"

"It was creepy, and it was driving us insane," Refn says. "But we knew there was something trying to access her." One night, frustrated and out of options, he called the Thai production manager. He told her, "We believe there's a ghost in the house. She said, 'OK, got it. I'll be right over.' And you think she's gonna call Ray Parker Jr. or something."

What she did show up with was a shaman, who inspected the apartment and declared that, indeed, there was a spirit present. It had latched onto the Refn family when they'd arrived at the airport, and while it wasn't dangerous, it was of course quite annoying as it was attempting to communicate with their young daughter. The next day, Liv went to consult with some monks on the matter. At the temple, one of them asked her if she wanted a Coca-Cola or a Pepsi to drink. "I thought the acceptance of the spiritual world and reality coexisting here, without any doubt, was fascinating," Refn says. "And I basically threw out 30 pages of the script." He didn't want to explain the mystery anymore. He'd let it speak for itself.



That explains a lot.

Kellen

Larry Smith's cinematography was beautiful and the horror-ish score from Cliff Martinez was cool.  I thought that Kristin Scott Thomas was good in some scenes, and just came off as being hammy in others.  The fight scene between Gosling and Vithaya Pansringarm was fun.  Other than that there isn't a whole lot going on in here.  Maybe I'll have to watch it again but I feel kinda meh about this -- I kinda felt the same way about Vahalla Rising the first time I watched it and that grew on me over time not really sure about this one though.

Frederico Fellini

Jesus Horatio Christ... Can a film be any slower? I felt like I was watching well lit, artsy shots of people looking at the horizon for an hour and a half, mixed with some shots of old asian dude walking slow as all fuck (I get it, that is how badass mothafuckas walk, but seriously, he overdid it so hard. It started just being super boring after the 3rd time, like "oh okay, another long uncut shot of this dude walking like he's underwater. Fucking great"). I guess I like the super graphic a-tad-more-realistic-than-Kill Bill type of violence but even that didn't do much for me or for the movie.

And what the fuck is Ryan Gosling doing here? He's basically playing the same character again, and this dude didn't even talk  for the first 30 minutes of the movie. He's just staring at people like a fucking weirdo. Not very impressed with his acting in this one either, but then again, his character didn't do shit the whole movie. The movie was all about the old asian dude that likes to cut people's hands and keeps a samurai sword tucked in the back of his shirt like a wannabe-ninja.

I guess I also liked the dry, uncomfortable humor. Definitely laughed hard a few times, like when the mom tells the hooker that the brother had a bigger cock than Julian, that shit was so unexpected, so damn funny. I can obviously  see some traces of incest in the relationship between julian and his mom, but the movie doesn't care to dive into that, so I don't either.

The music was definitely good, I just wish he had done some of those beautiful musical sequences like the ones he did in Drive. He has a couple here, but they're not as awesome or as emotional.

Basically, to sum up, both Bronson and Drive were better than this slow, boring, pretentious piece of shit. Nicolas is trying to be Kubrick and he's failing. I give this a 6/10 and that's just me being fond of the beautiful cinematography. Even though this movie is shitty, I'm still a fan of Refn and DRIVE is still my favorite film of 2011. I just hope the next film he does is completely different than this, is definitely time for him to switch his style up.
We fought against the day and we won... WE WON.

Cinema is something you do for a billion years... or not at all.

wilder

Quote from: Freddie on July 21, 2013, 12:43:48 AM
I can obviously see some traces of incest in the relationship between julian and his mom, but the movie doesn't care to dive into that, so I don't either.

+1

Just Withnail

The first 50 minutes of this were utterly vapid. The last 50 might be the cat's pajamas, but I doubt I'll ever bother getting to know first hand.

modage

Yeah, "Drive" was my favorite movie of 2011 and this was probably the worst film I've seen all year. Refn totally shit the bed. It's a shame he blew all of his "Drive" cache already/so quickly when there were so many interesting things he could have done with it.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Kellen


Cloudy

Did anyone like this? I feel like I'm missing something. Saw it twice. Thought it was a bore. His interviews piss me off even more, because he takes the bad reviews as a compliment. No...it was just a meaningless movie that didn't even function on an entertainment level. The acting was shite, I couldn't stop laughing at Gosling. The faces he was making were so fucking hilarious. The cinematography/music was great...but to what service? The movie was unmoving. I love Refn more than most, but that was pretty shitty.

Pubrick

Quote from: Cloudy on July 24, 2013, 03:08:45 AM
Did anyone like this?

no. it has been universally panned since premiering at Cannes.

i don't think anyone has ever thought this would be any good outside of the trailers. it's a shame, but no longer a surprise.

i don't know why anyone is actually watching it.
under the paving stones.


abuck1220

i liked it, i suppose, but didn't love it. and i can understand why people hate it so much.

Frederico Fellini

Quote from: abuck1220 on July 24, 2013, 04:09:14 PM
i liked it, i suppose, but didn't love it. and i can understand why people hate it so much.


What do you like about it?  (legitimate question, I just wanna know because you might say something that could make me wanna watch it again.)
We fought against the day and we won... WE WON.

Cinema is something you do for a billion years... or not at all.